THE NATIONAL FOURTH READER: CONTAINING A SIMPLE, COMPREHENSIVE, AND PRACTICAL TREATISE ON ELOCUTION; NUMEROUS AND CLASSIFIED EXERCISES IN READING AND DECLAMATION; COPIOUS NOTES; AND A COMPLETE SUP A. S. BARNES & COMPANY, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 1870. 7 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. SMITH & MCDOUGAL, STEREOTYPERS AND ELECTROTYPERS, 82 & 84 Beekman St. GEORGE W. WOOD, No. 2 Dutch St. 27-662 17-1 M all TH PREFACE. EFACE HE opportunities presented in this volume for the practice of all the characteristics of a good reader are many and important; and the selections themselves, made as they are from so great a number of authors whose works are well known and highly estimated, while they subserve the purpose for which they have been arranged, can not fail to inform the understanding, improve the taste, and cultivate the heart. Part First embraces a simple, complete, and eminently practical Treatise on Elocution. The principles and rules are stated in a succinct and lucid manner, and followed by examples and exercises of sufficient number and extent to enable the student thoroughly to master each point as presented, as well as to acquire a distinct comprehension of the parts as a whole. In Part Second, while the exercises in reading have been graded in a systematic manner, presenting the simplest pieces first in order, it will also be found that a strict classification has been preserved with regard to the nature of the subjects. Many of the pieces have never before appeared in any readingbooks; and, in most of those which are not entirely new, new feature, or features, will be found to give freshness and peculiar adaptation. some It has been our especial aim, while introducing a great variety of the choicest literature of the English language into this work, to reject such pieces as, from the nature of their subjects, would not be understood by the pupils for whom the book has been prepared. Great pains have been taken to indicate the pronunciation of all words liable to be mispronounced, where they occur; and in |
